Ursula Keller wins the SPIE 2020 Gold Medal

For nearly three decades, the research of Ursula Keller, a professor of physics at ETH Zurich, has defined the revolution in ultrafast science and technology. She pioneered the semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM), which quickly became ubiquitous in useful ultrashort pulse laser systems. From 1993 onwards, with the research group that she built at ETH Zurich, she has led international state-of-the-art developments in ultrafast science through a comprehensive program of research, ranging from the technological development of SESAMs to shape and withstand millijoule femtosecond laser pulses, to fundamental science with the demonstration of the attoclock.

The SPIE Gold Medal is the highest honor the Society bestows. It is awarded in recognition of outstanding engineering or scientific accomplishments in optics, photonics, electro-optics, or imaging technologies and applications